Another famous boarding prep school to close

Posted on 10 January 2018 by Boarding Concern

One of England’s leading Catholic fee-paying schools has announced this week that its preparatory school faces closure.

St Martin’s Ampleforth, which is the stand alone preparatory school for Ampleforth College in north Yorkshire, said in a statement on Monday that it was consulting with parents and teachers on a proposal to “close the Pre-Prep (<8 years) and Years 2 to 5 (ages 6-10) and integrate the remaining years into the Ampleforth College site”.

“This will run from Year 6 (ages 10-11) upwards for the next academic year and Year 7 (ages 11-12) upwards thereafter”, it said. The proposal would mean closing the whole school by September 2018.

The Tablet understands that falling numbers of young boarders – a national trend in private prep-schools – has made the running of St Martin’s unviable.

[Another famous Yorkshire prep school, Malsis, closed in December 2014, due to falling numbers.]